Well, no farewell drink for us, as everyone was busy working till past midnight. The engineers needed to fix the zoom and focus again after the tests they did, and the PICASSO scientists had a meeting about what to improve and what they could do next. They are planning to keep tinkering on PICASSO till they get a system that works well, then rebuild it completely from scratch so that it will work better.
For the last dive PICASSO gave us it’s best show yet : impeccable steering the whole time, great shots of midwater jellyfish and ctenophores with zoom and focus and everything, and nice shots of the benthos with some good sea anemones and possibly a new ctenophore species. We will even be studying that video as it’s so good. And it looks like everyone on board could feel it was a sucess : without asking anyone the captain of the ship stopped the winch and turned the boat completely around so that the PICASSO would be suspended in front of Mt Fuji. A very good show, recorded for TV and on the cameras of about half the crew. I will be adding better photos later, as I was using Dhugal’s camera at the time.
While they were diving I was busy feeding my jellyfish (the fish won’t eat) and packing up the lab. It says in the book that Liriope are voraceous feeders and it certainly likes everything I’ve given it. I also left it with 2 copepods and a piece of something so that it won’t get too hungry during the week-end. I also had the video of the dive in real-time on the big TV in the lab so that was fun.
Because of the wind we couldn’t disembark at Ito port as planned so they decided to go to JAMSTEC and dock there. We got to take the fish and jellyfish and the frozen siphonophore off that way and put them away safely. We also took the microscope off so we will be able to start looking at stuff on Monday. It will also make it easier to feed my jellyfish. It does seem to be growing, but it’s still not much over 1mm wide. I can’t wait to see what it’ll look like on Monday (I do hope it will still be alive!).
It as fun seeing the ship steam up to JAMSTEC. About half the people are staying on for the last leg of the trip with the MR-X1 but thy were planning to go have a run around the town a bit first. The engineer who helped design PICASSO had even gotter dressed up in black pants with a fancy white shirt. Everyone’s plans for the evening were different but they all included a non-fish dinner. I wonder why.... As the ship was so big I didn’t have too much problems walking on land. Just a bit at first standing on the dock, looking at the immobile ship and seeing the dock slowly go up and down....
Back at home now, wading through all the unread e-mails and waiting till the wash finishes. It was a super duper cruise, and it’s really hard to beleive that I was still in France just 2 weeks ago. This week-end is for resting, but it may include a small trip down to the end of the train line to the beach, just to get it out of my system. I am planning on eating pasta a lot next week too, as I’ve been missing it. They did serve italian style pasta a bit on the boat, but 3 spaghettis in tomato sauce at 7am doesn’t really count...
Off to get myself some clean clothes now. It’s only when you get off the boat that you realise they really smell! The people on the JAMSTEC shuttle bus last night must have thought I’d fallen in a gasoline pit....
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